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The Work

Set inside a single room in Folsom Prison, three men from the outside participate in a four-day group-therapy retreat with a group of incarcerated men for a real look at the challenges of rehabilitation.

Director: Jairus McLeary & Gethin Aldous
Year: 2017
Time: 89

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Donateto the Inside Circle Foundation, a group that strives “to create environments in which prisoners can work and explore the issues in their lives that have prevented them from living up to their full potential as human beings,” as seen in THE WORK.

Writea prison inmate. Receiving letters can be a great way to lift an inmate’s spirits and keep them hopeful while they are serving time. Learn how to get started from wikiHow.

Volunteerat a local prison. Therapeutic programs like the one featured in THE WORK are often volunteer-run, while there is always a need for educational tutors. Programs like Princeton’s Petey Greene Program helps facilitate prison volunteer opportunities.

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“They are men who learned early on to meet feelings of vulnerability with violence and force. It is not unusual for confrontations in circle to become physical in some respect. But together these men manage to redefine vulnerability as a sign of strength rather than weakness.”

Co-director Jarius McLeary and his producer/brothers Miles and Eon McLeary sat down with No Film School to talk about getting access, shooting vérité in prison conditions, and how even the most seemingly immovable people can change.

Why prisons should make more time for inmates’ families

Many people develop pen pal relationships with prison inmates. New people each day are starting to send letters to inmates, trying to reach out and offer friendship to the people locked away who are often lonely and seek companionship. Just like with any pen pal, there are certain things to keep in mind when writing to a prison inmate.

“The goal of the ICF is to create environments in which prisoners can work and explore the issues in their lives that have prevented them from living up to their full potential as human beings. In these environments the ICF primarily utilizes self-help discussion groups and creative writing techniques such as journaling, autobiography, and poetry to achieve the inner development necessary to become healthy contributing members of our society.”

“I could go on forever, but hopefully, this film is changing people’s opinions on who these inmates are and how some of them do want to change. For those that do, I think we ought to at least offer a path back.”

“…unless you change the system so that it’s open to people’s stories and people’s individual lives, to their individual, unmet needs, then you’re not going to create that transformative change that is required to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Read the conversation between Daniel Reisel, a doctor studying the neuroscience of restorative justice, and ex-convict Shaka Senghor, who after spending 19 years in prison managed to turn his life around, now working as a mentor to coach at-risk youth.

The conversation, including Ted Talks from both men, can be accessed on TED.

“We didn’t know if the cameras were going to shut down all emotion that was happening. There was just really no way to anticipate that even if we had been in there a bunch of times. …Since there was no guarantee what we going to capture, we shot a ton of more material that’s not in the film that’s primarily interviews. … Once we caught the meat of it we realized we didn’t need any of that stuff.”

“Providing offenders an opportunity to change their thinking, their lives and their place in society is in everyone’s interest. It does not compromise our enforcement of the law. But it demands changes in our thinking: to see criminals as fellow human beings and to provide genuine opportunities for ex-offenders to take part in society.”

“When I’m sitting in front of a man and go through his life’s events, I often come to the point where he, as boy, experienced certain bad things. I might even feel sorry for him. That has nothing to do with finding excuses for the actions that landed him in prison – it’s about understanding correlations. How did the kid who always got kicked by bullies at school become an adult that kicks other people? Somehow I’m able to see both – the man who committed those awful crimes and the boy I feel sorry for.”